Diddy Kong Pilot was a planned sequel to Diddy Kong Racing, but with flying as the only means of transport. However, Nintendo found the game substandard (one of the point of criticism provided was "There's no point in flying up and down on flat levels")[1] and did not want to publish it. After Rare was sold to Microsoft, which caused the company to lose the rights to Donkey Kong characters, Diddy Kong Pilot was converted into the game Banjo-Pilot in 2005. However, on November 5th 2011, a collector who had purchased a prototype cartridge leaked its ROM onto the internet.

There is a gameplay video that a Rare employee (Transparentjinjo) posted on YouTube on September 15, 2011 to reveal more information about the game before its cancellation and another on October 3, 2011 to reveal even more details about the game. It is shown to have a Racing mode, Stories mode, Dogfights mode, Battles mode, Clock Race, and Options mode. The Options mode has revealed that the player could decide if he or she wanted to use the D-Pad or the tilt sensor, implying that the game was going to use the tilt sensor.

Like the predecessor, the player can collect bananas. When Races mode is selected and the player goes on to selecting a level, he or she can choose the difficulty of the level.

There is also a stories mode with three different stories: King of Kongs, Back to the Light, and K. Rool's Gold. King of Kongs set contains Beach Barricade, another beach level. It appears to be incomplete. There is also a lava level in the Back to the Light set. It is unknown what the course's name is. There is also a Classic Dogfight in the K. Rool's Gold set on which appears to have Magma Mainland in it. There is also Cranky's Challenge where the player has to be first and collect all of the Banana Coins. This was later replaced by Jiggy Challenge in Banjo-Pilot.

Another mode is the dogfight mode where the player may do a Classic Dogfight, a Dawn Duel, a Classic Variation, or a Focal Feud. This mode has players fighting against each other. The difficulty can also be chosen on this mode.

There is also a Clock Race mode where the player can race on any track in a Time Trials-like way. The difficulty can also be chose.

The player can also enter his or her name and Cranky aids the Kongs instead of being a playable by sitting next to his hut.